Recent reading
Nov. 24th, 2015 03:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
luzulaThe Long Way Around to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers
For my fannish book club. The set-up is like Firefly, with a tight-knit crew in a small space ship (except this crew is multi-species). This is a cosy, domestic SF story, kind of like curtain team!fic for a TV series you don't know. There's a charming femslash interspecies relationship, and I liked that the main character is appreciated for her administrative competence. There is plot, but it feels like it's mostly there to showcase people's relationships and the various alien species. The book has a lot of heart, but I felt like it lacked a bit of narrative drive. Does anyone know if the author is in fandom? (Also, I feel all smug that I picked a book thatscribe and seascribe loved!)
Drowned Ammet by Diana Wynne Jones (#2 in the Dalemark series)
I enjoyed this, though perhaps not as much as the first book, which had a more ensemble feel. Also I am trying to puzzle out what the books are saying about politics. Like, on the one hand, Mitt wants to fight the oppressive earl. I feel like the narrative is saying that this is a good thing, but Mitt is being naive in how he's going about it. Then later on Old Ammet tells Mitt that the Holy Islands are fated to be "delivered into his keeping" in the future, and asks him to choose whether he will be a conqueror or a friend. He chooses "friend". Then he tells the islanders to take good care of their mentally impaired earl until then, because after all they've got to have someone (to rule them) until he comes back. WTF? I don't think Mitt is being ironic, but is the narrative being ironic here? I mean, that earl is not actually going to rule them--the islanders can take good care of themselves. So why would they need Mitt, either? Hmm. We'll see how the rest of the series goes...
For my fannish book club. The set-up is like Firefly, with a tight-knit crew in a small space ship (except this crew is multi-species). This is a cosy, domestic SF story, kind of like curtain team!fic for a TV series you don't know. There's a charming femslash interspecies relationship, and I liked that the main character is appreciated for her administrative competence. There is plot, but it feels like it's mostly there to showcase people's relationships and the various alien species. The book has a lot of heart, but I felt like it lacked a bit of narrative drive. Does anyone know if the author is in fandom? (Also, I feel all smug that I picked a book that
scribe and seascribe loved!)Drowned Ammet by Diana Wynne Jones (#2 in the Dalemark series)
I enjoyed this, though perhaps not as much as the first book, which had a more ensemble feel. Also I am trying to puzzle out what the books are saying about politics. Like, on the one hand, Mitt wants to fight the oppressive earl. I feel like the narrative is saying that this is a good thing, but Mitt is being naive in how he's going about it. Then later on Old Ammet tells Mitt that the Holy Islands are fated to be "delivered into his keeping" in the future, and asks him to choose whether he will be a conqueror or a friend. He chooses "friend". Then he tells the islanders to take good care of their mentally impaired earl until then, because after all they've got to have someone (to rule them) until he comes back. WTF? I don't think Mitt is being ironic, but is the narrative being ironic here? I mean, that earl is not actually going to rule them--the islanders can take good care of themselves. So why would they need Mitt, either? Hmm. We'll see how the rest of the series goes...
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Date: 2015-11-24 06:20 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2015-11-24 10:13 pm (UTC)